Tactile sensing methods for robotic manipulation, e.g., through a robotic hand, use sensors that employ various techniques, such as, piezoresistance, piezocapacitance, piezoelectricity, optics, and ultrasonics. Despite recent advances, prior art methods for robotic manipulation, however, have yet to provide robotic hands with increased sensitivity and abilities. Stand-alone tactile sensing demonstrated in testing conditions, e.g., individual tactile element (“taxel”) testing on a workbench or laboratory, is not easily transferable to useful tactile-sensing integrated within a robotic hand. For example, even though tactile sensing arrays are designed to be flexible, conformable, and stretchable, other constraints, such as wiring, power consumption, robustness, manufacturability, and maintainability, make them cumbersome to use in a robotic hand, and especially difficult to integrate inside a robot finger. Inside a robotic hand, the sensor needs to be small, with very strict shape and packaging requirements, and needs to work over long periods of time in not perfectly controlled environments.
Accordingly, new and improved interfaces and/or interactions are desirable to achieve high-resolution sensing over relatively large areas of a robotic surface using sensors that can be amenable to integration inside a robot hand.